fish_. The latter proposition may be false, but it follows; and
(according to this doctrine) Logic is only concerned with the consistent
use of words: the truth or falsity of the proposition itself is a
question for Zoology. The short-coming of extreme Nominalism lies in
speaking of language as if its meaning were unimportant. But Whately did
not intend this: he was a man of great penetration and common-sense.

(b) Hamilton, our best-known Conceptualist, defined Logic as the science
of the "formal laws of thought," and "of thought as thought," that is,
without regard to the matter thought about. Just as Whately regarded
Logic as concerned merely with cogent forms of statement, so Hamilton
treated it as concerned merely with the necessary relations of thought.
This doctrine is called Conceptualism, because the simplest element of
thought is the Concept; that is, an abstract idea, such as is signified
by the word _man, planet, colour, virtue_; not a representative or
generic image, but the thought of all attributes common to any class of
things. Men, planets, colours, virtuous actions or characters, have,
severally, something in common on account of which they bear these
general names; and the thought of what they have in common, as the
ground of these names, is a Concept. To affirm or deny one concept of
another, as _Some men are virtuous_, or _No man is perfectly virtuous_,
is to form a Judgment, corresponding to the Proposition of which the
other schools of Logic discourse. Conceptualism, then, investigates the
conditions of consistent judgment.

To distinguish Logic from Psychology is most important in connection
with Conceptualism. Concepts and Judgments being mental acts, or
products of mental activity, it is often thought that Logic must be a
department of Psychology. It is recognised of course, that Psychology
deals with much more than Logic does, with sensation, pleasure and pain,